


it's not that i don't want to be with you (but you only wanted me, the way you wanted me)

by majesdane



Category: Skins (UK)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-18
Updated: 2009-03-18
Packaged: 2017-12-06 09:33:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/734180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/majesdane/pseuds/majesdane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It's probably more painful this way, Naomi thinks.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's not that i don't want to be with you (but you only wanted me, the way you wanted me)

 

  
_from the entrance to the exit_  
is longer than it looks from where we stand  
\-- 'old college try,' the mountain goats

 

 

The sky's a nice clear blue, she thinks, no clouds, and then she wonders what it is she's doing here.

 

;;

 

She's outside in the garden, sitting on the grass with her legs splayed out in front of her, fingers wrapped loosely around the neck of a half-empty bottle of vodka resting between her legs. The music's blasting along so loudly that she can hear it even out here, every word, every note. She thinks about maybe going back inside and joining the party, but it's too hot in the house -- which is why, she tells herself, she's out here in the first place, to cool off -- and she's feeling rather sluggish and heavy right now. Lazy. She doesn't even think she'd be able to get up if she wanted to; her legs feel too weak.

She closes her eyes, grins ridiculously at no one, takes a swig of vodka.

"You going to drink all that yourself?" A voice asks, above her, low and throaty, and Naomi frowns a bit at the sudden arrival of company.

She opens her eyes, reluctantly -- she feels very sleepy, all of a sudden -- and looks up, so that she can put a face to the voice above her. There's a girl standing at her feet, smiling. Her hair's a red color that Naomi doesn't think is at all natural. Not bad or ugly, she thinks, just, _different_. It hangs down straight, falling around her shoulders, framing a pale face, her bangs falling into her eyes. Pretty, Naomi thinks, and the thought surprises her.

"Maybe," she says finally, slurring a bit, but she reaches out and offers the bottle to the girl, who takes it without hesitation, smile widening a bit.

"Thanks," the girl says. Naomi shrugs in response. The girl sinks to her knees on the grass beside Naomi, somewhere around her calves. She takes of drink of vodka, tells Naomi, "I'm not drunk enough yet," and then takes another large gulp, grimacing a bit as she swallows. She wipes her mouth on the back of her hand and shoots Naomi another big smile.

"But you'll get there," Naomi comments.

"Right." Another swallow. A pause. "You enjoying the party?"

Naomi shifts. "Not really. It's a bit shit."

"It's _really_ shit," the redhead corrects her, but the smile never leaves her face. "I'm not really into like, you know, parties and shit like this. I wasn't planning on going to this one, actually, but Katie -- that's my sister, we're twins, she's popular -- dragged my along anyway. Something about me needing to meet some guys she knew. Like, charity or what the fuck."

Naomi leans back, putting her arms behind her and resting her weight back on her palms. She's feeling a bit dizzy and the world's staring to blur a bit at the edges, at the corners of her eyes. Her head's a bit fuzzy, too, from drinking too much too soon. She feels worn out.

"I don't know you," she says thoughtfully, after a moment, more to the top of the gazebo in the backyard next door, rather than to the girl in front of her. "Do we go to school together?"

The girl looks down at her hands, looks down into the mouth of the bottle of vodka she's holding. "Yeah. We've got . . . classes together. Biology. And Literature, I think," she adds, after a moment, speaking slowly, like she's got to think about what she's saying.

"Oh," Naomi murmurs, though the girl doesn't look any more familiar to her now than she did a moment ago. "Oh, well. Cool. I'm Naomi."

"I know," the girl says quickly, and then flushes. "I mean, I'm Emily."

"Right." Naomi leans forward, reaches for the vodka. Emily passes it to her, hands moving to her blue and gold plaid skirt, smoothing down the front of it, though it doesn't look to Naomi like it needs straightening. She puts the bottle to her mouth, tips back her head, takes a sip.

Emily says, "Indirect kiss," and when Naomi looks over at her, she flushes again, a brighter shade of pink this time, and stammers, "It's like, you know. What they say. We drank out of the same bottle, so it's like an indirect kiss."

Naomi doesn't say anything, just finishes what's left of the vodka -- it's a small bottle anyway, she tells herself, feeling a bit stupid and lame for drinking most of it by herself -- and tosses the empty bottle aside lazily. She can hear the soft clink as it rolls a bit and hits a brick; there's a line of them, blocking off a bunch of exotic-looking, brightly colored flowers. She doesn't know what they're called.

Hell, she doesn't even know whose house this is anymore, can't remember a fucking thing, because the alcohol is really starting to kick in now, and her mind's gone all blank. And Emily's still in front of her, kneeling, sitting back on her heels. Naomi gives her a wide, lop-sided grin and says, "Hello."

"You're drunk," Emily tells her, as if she needed to be told.

"S'are you," Naomi says, still grinning, even though she doesn't actually know for sure. Then, "Why'd you come out here, anyway? I don't even know you -- I don't think, do I? -- and, I don't know," she laughs, the words getting all jumbled in her mouth and sounding absurd to her.

"Dunno," Emily says, quietly (too quietly, Naomi almost doesn't hear her), "it's because . . . Maybe . . . Well, I . . ."

It's only after a moment that Naomi realizes Emily's moved, that her face is suddenly very close to Naomi's own. Up close, Naomi can see Emily's eyes. They're a nice sort of brown color, she thinks. Dark, but warm. She thinks _mocha_ and then, _mahogany_ , and then thinks she's too off her face to think of a proper color.

"I just want to," Emily's saying, but Naomi's not really paying attention, because she can smell lilacs and cream and she's wondering what sort of perfume Emily's got on. And then Emily's kissing her, leaning in and pressing their lips together. Soft. Tentative.

Emily snaps back an instant later, as if burned. Naomi just stares at her, licks her lips.

"Oh," she says blankly. "Oh."

 

;;

 

(Months later, she's lying in bed and thinking about that; thinking about the kiss. She thinks about how Emily looked right then, upset, nervous, expectant, as if she couldn't decide how to feel. And then Naomi wonders what prompted the kiss in the first place, what it ever was that Emily Fitch -- the doormat, the other twin, shy and unpopular and a bit of a loser, that's what everyone thinks -- saw in her, because she certainly doesn't get it at all.)

(She can't understand why Emily, who she couldn't even recognize from Literature class, even though she sat two rows over, for fuck's sake, fancies her. It just doesn't make sense; she can't work it out.)

 

;;

 

It all goes to hell, and of course, she should have expected nothing less, especially when a near stranger suddenly showed up, sat next to her on the grass, drank a third of her bottle of cheap vodka, and then kissed her.

Emily's in front of her, blushing, nervous and Naomi sort of wants Emily to kiss her again, to do it properly this time, instead of something quick and stolen. And then, since Emily doesn't move or say anything, Naomi, with her new alcohol-induced bravery, begins to lean forward. Emily's just about to lean in as well, but then someone calls her name and she jumps away, looking panicked.

Naomi looks over, sees another redhead striding over to the both of them, looking cross. She looks just like Emily, and Naomi thinks, right, twins, and she sort of smiles at that, because the idea seems rather amusing to her right now, drunk and stupid.

Katie throws a fit, of course, because she was there, watching from the back porch, watching as they kissed -- almost kissed, Naomi corrects herself, almost kissed. Emily gives Naomi a look that Naomi can't quite figure out, something between longing and apologizing.

She almost feels sorry for her.

 

;;

 

And that's probably why, she tells herself, she puts up with everything. She doesn't owe Emily Fitch a fucking thing, she thinks, that it's _Emily_ who owes _her_ , for keeping quiet about the truth. But she takes it anyway, when Katie mutters _lezzah_ when Naomi walks by her in class or when she passes Katie in the hallways, surrounded by a bunch of other students, and they all turn to look and snicker at her.

Naomi thinks maybe it should bother her more than it does, but she doesn't really give a fuck about what Katie or anyone else at school thinks. She's mostly just mad at Emily, because honestly, she doesn't even need an apology or shit like that, she just wants Emily to tell the truth. If not to the whole school or her bitch of a sister, at least to Naomi. At least to herself. Sometimes she catches Emily staring at her across the room; Emily always looks away, guilty, sometimes murmurs a quick _sorry_ , as she passes Naomi on her way out after the bell rings.

It's always an apology, always _sorry_ , and Naomi can't stand it, can't stand fucking Emily Fitch and the way she looks over with her puppy dog eyes, the way she's always fucking _there_ , the way she says _sorry_ as if it'll suddenly make things all sorted between them, as if Naomi even gives a fuck.

 

;;

 

There are times, too, when she catches herself thinking about Emily. It makes her head ache and her throat feel dry and cracked and she has to stop and catch her breath, because it feels like the sky is pressing down on her. And it's not really the fact that she's thinking about Emily that bothers her, but it's the _way_ she's thinking about her, in a stupid, longing sort of way, because she _almost_ misses Emily, when she's not around.

 

;;

 

Everything's moving too fast, everything's gotten out of hand. She just wants it all to slow down; when they lie in bed, Emily's fingers write lines from love songs on her shoulders, along her arms, across her stomach. And it's nice, when they're like this. Quiet and still. There aren't any expectations or a need to talk and try and put into words how they feel. (Naomi isn't very good at that anyway, for all her snappy comebacks and witty remarks.) She kisses Emily, her neck, the space below her ear, listens as Emily moans softly, waits for her to arch up into her touch, as her hand moves from Emily's stomach to her thigh, sliding inward.

She's not exactly sure when this happened, when she suddenly realized that having Emily around wasn't all that bad, even if she did seem to think Naomi was somebody special and she was a bit too earnest. And she doesn't mind it quite so much, when Emily presses her up against her bedroom wall, kisses her roughly, because she can't remember if she's ever felt this before, this rush of nameless emotion that races through her veins whenever Emily kisses her.

And she doesn't know if Emily's worn her out or just worn her down, and then she wonders if it really matters. But she knows that she's not gay -- or so she keeps telling herself, looking at herself every morning in the bathroom mirror as she washes her face and brushes her teeth, sometimes with Emily still in her bed and sometimes with it thankfully -- or is it unfortunately? Naomi's not sure -- empty. She knows how she feels and she knows what she likes, and the sensible part of her says to just fucking admit it already and stop being a goddamn coward -- she's not like Effy, she can admit when she loves someone, she knows she can. But it doesn't help and she can't force herself to speak the truth.

If Naomi was so inclined, she thinks she'd find the whole thing amusingly ironic. But she isn't, and she doesn't, and pausing in the hallway, she can see Emily in bed, bare shoulders pale in the morning sunlight, hair mussed, sighing, and for a moment, she almost wants to be brave.

 

;;

 

Instead, she settles for stolen kisses, hands held under desks, _I love you_ whispered in Emily's ear at night when she's asleep. When she's not awake to hear the truth. It's probably more painful this way, Naomi thinks.

But it's the only way she knows.


End file.
